


Phase Changes

by Thea_Bromine



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: Multi, Sexual Content
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-31
Updated: 2014-01-31
Packaged: 2018-01-10 17:37:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 18,281
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1162589
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Thea_Bromine/pseuds/Thea_Bromine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>If you’re looking for plot, keep walking; you won’t find it here. Xander and Willow don't know much about good sex; Giles, on the other hand, knows plenty.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Freezing

He bloody _hated_ surprises. Not that this was a surprise: they had come looking for the Slogr ice demon, and they had expected to find one.

They hadn't expected to find a nest. Slograe were by their nature solitary, or so all the research had suggested; they bred slowly, due to the tendency of a breeding pair to fight after mating and for one of them to kill the other. Since the sexes were fairly matched in size and aggression, this meant that about half the time, the female died, and since only about one mating in four resulted in pregnancy, and about one pregnancy in three resulted in the female killing and eating her kits, the probability of them coming across an aggressively protective mother Slogr was... not something that Giles should be wasting his time working out, particularly given that he had only passed O Level Maths with a scrape and some luck, and had failed Probability and Statistics twice.

Also, of course, any attention that he was giving to the likelihood of them meeting what they actually _had_ met was a waste of brainpower which would be better allocated to remembering which of the turns in the ice tunnels would take them back to the lacuna through which they had entered this reality and through which they would be able to get out. Willow and Xander were ahead of him, having the advantage of youth; he was fit for his age, but he didn’t have the build for a sprinter. Buffy had peeled off several minutes earlier, after killing the kits, trying to get ahead of the demon, and a sizeable part of his mind was focused on listening for her; he refused to go home without her, but if she didn’t _hurry_...

Ahead of him, Willow, who was showing a remarkable turn of speed, rounded a bend with Xander at her heels; he heard her shriek and found that he hadn't been running as fast – not _quite_ as fast – as he could. It didn’t make for a clean halt on the ice, particularly given that both Willow and Xander were pelting back straight towards him, but it did mean that his body continued to turn as he absorbed the sight of Buffy, blade in hand, running behind...

An oncoming ice demon, mouth opening, ready to spit, and Willow and Xander directly in its path.

When they scolded him for it later, he denied having thought even for a second about what he did, but it was a lie. It had been one of those everything-happening-in-slow-motion, moving-through-treacle moments. He had ample time to assess that the demon was all but on top of Willow and Xander, that there was no time to duck or dodge or wait for Buffy, and that the blue blast was already forming around its jaws. They were dead, all three of them, unless something got between the demon and them, and there was nothing, there was nothing to put between an enraged and frightened and _cornered_ demon, and Willow and Xander, except Giles.

His hand closed around Xander's wrist and he pulled, even as Willow crashed into his chest and his other arm wrapped around her tightly enough that she had nowhere to go. He continued to turn, desperately slowly or so it felt, until Willow was once again facing the way the demon was coming, but with her face in his chest, her body protected by his, and Xander, off balance, sliding in against her. He dropped Xander's wrist and grabbed his hair, yanking hard enough to bring the boy’s face into his own shoulder, over Willow, and then the first blast of frigid air touched his back, and he commended the soul he didn’t believe himself to have, to a deity he didn’t believe to exist, in a wordless gabble of ‘I know I fucked it up to start with, Eyghon and all that, but I’ve tried to put it right since, and I don’t really mind being dead as long as Buffy and Willow and Xander _aren’t_...”

Then the ice hit.


	2. Thawing

Later, he found that he wasn’t sure what he remembered actually _happening_ , and what he remembered being told _had_ happened. Some of the early events he could recall; others he could picture but since almost everything came to mind like a jerky film with him not as participant but as observer, it was all a little confused.

He knew where – to his utter bewilderment – he ended up, but not how he got there.

It had begun with Buffy killing the demon, fortunately before it had reached the second stage of its defensive blast. The first, designed to incapacitate him for the kill, was bad enough: his clothes were wet through, and instantly frozen, to the extent that he couldn’t move. Over the next week or so, too, he found that the hair at the back of his neck tended to break away and a patch of skin on his shoulder peeled and itched. The second blast, though, the one which would have hit him with a complex mix of chemicals, flash-freezing him from spine to navel, never came. Just as well, he thought with black amusement, because when he had begun to fall, he had brought both Xander and Willow to the ground with him: it would have been one thing to have been killed in action, and he believed that they would genuinely have grieved for him, but it would have been quite another thing to have fallen over and shattered into crystalline shards, coating them both with Giles-dust and leaving nothing even to bury.

He _didn’t_ remember how they got out; Buffy told him later that she had held his shoulders and Xander had held his ankles and they had carried him like a plank, slipping and swearing on the icy floor, while Willow, with shocked tears running down her face, had hiccupped her way through the incantation opening the lacuna. They had landed on his living room floor in a terrified heap: Buffy still hyper on adrenaline; Willow with her hair frizzed around her in a halo of sparking magic, Xander – _Xander?_ – brains fully engaged, hitting the ground, so to speak, running, keeping them focused.

Keeping him alive.

It was Xander who stopped Buffy from trying to strip the frozen clothes from his body when he saw the skin, frozen to the fabric, pull; Xander who ordered Willow into the kitchen to calm down and make tea. He admitted later that he hadn't known if it would be possible to get tea into Giles, but that it seemed unthinkable not to try. Xander and Buffy had manoeuvred the rigid Giles into his bathroom, both of them terrified by the infrequence and the rasping sound of his breathing. It was Xander who knew – from some plotline in a superhero comic, and never again would Giles have a single _word_ to say against his choice of reading material – that if they put Giles in hot water, he would die of shock.

It was Buffy, with Slayer strength, who lifted him into the bath and climbed in after him, holding him up, both of them fully clothed, and who, according to Xander, who was laughing and not quite crying at the recollection, had stood under the flow of cold water with him, cursing desperately, abusing Giles roundly, _daring_ him to die and leave her before she had a chance to kill him herself for doing anything so bloody – which was _not_ usually one of her swear words, it was one of his – _heroic_. And she _hated_ cold showers and she wanted to get out, so could he please thaw a bit and breathe and generally just _not be dying_?

He had folded as the ice in his clothes melted, slumping over her shoulder. He thought he remembered that: her hair, rat-tailed from the water, had tickled his skin, and she had heaved him out of the bath and into Xander's arms just as Willow burst into the bathroom too. Then there was some more swearing and too many people, and Xander – again, _Xander?_ – taking charge. He thought he remembered that: Xander, voice raised, giving orders.

“Buffy, take a towel, get out and get dried and changed... you’ve got a change of clothes here, right? Need you in a minute to get him upstairs. Willow, where’s the tea? Put sugar in it – I _know_ he hates it, tough, he needs it – and take that upstairs too. Find me something to put on him, a shirt and some track pants or pjs or something. Gotta get these clothes off him and get him dry. Buffy, _go_ , he won’t want you here when he’s – he won’t want _me_ here when he’s naked but I’m better than you.”

He did actually remember Xander stripping him efficiently, scrubbing at his skin with a towel. He remembered being propped on the side of the bath, with his head drooping, looking at his own legs and thinking, coherently but very slowly, that he was a most unhealthy colour. He remembered looking down at Xander, on his knees towelling Giles’ thighs, and thinking that he’d wanted the boy there for months, and now he was too cold to get any bloody good of it. He’d been grateful when Willow banged on the door, and Xander had draped a towel modestly across his lap before letting her in with clothing for him, although he was still so cold that frankly, she wouldn’t have been able to see anything to discomfit her. He hadn't been able to help much, but Xander had manipulated him into a pair of pyjama trousers and a tee shirt, and had then got him to his feet, worked himself under one of Giles’ arms, and yelled for Buffy.

He didn’t remember how he got upstairs. He suspected that Buffy had picked him up in a fireman’s lift, which was sufficiently undignified that he could do without remembering it. He remembered being in bed, if not how he got there, with Willow sitting beside him, first of all holding his tea cup and coaxing him to try to drink, and then, with touching practicality, working tea into his mouth with the teaspoon. He remembered Buffy, hovering beside him, trying to persuade herself that she needn’t go on patrol, that she could stay with him, and whatever physical warmth was missing was replaced by an emotional warmth that she did care that he was hurt. He remembered the point at which she acknowledged that Slayer duties were being left undone, and that she _had_ to go, and the fierceness with which she made both Xander and Willow swear not to leave him and to call her _first thing_ in the morning to tell her that he was O.K.

He remembered the desperate hug before she left.

Then he remembered sliding sideways, unable to control his muscles, until Xander and Willow worked him down the bed and pulled the covers up to his chin. Here again was this new, decisive Xander: Giles’ wholly unexpected second in command, taking over.

“Will, you go and shower now; you’re still cold. Be quick and then I can go. We can’t leave Giles alone but it’s not gonna help if we’re half frozen too. If you put some coffee on downstairs, it’ll be done by the time you come out.”

He lay and listened to the bustle. Willow came back, smelling of coffee and soap, and Xander went; then Xander returned with his own coffee and sat down on the bed, a hand on Giles’ arm. For the first time he sounded unsure.

“Will... he’s still way too cold. I... do you think it would be safe to put him in hot water now? Or... if he goes to sleep, we gotta watch him all the time, yeah? Everything slows down when you go to sleep, and if he slows any further...”

He was facing away from Willow, half on his side; he missed what she said, but he heard Xander's startled “Huh?”, and then they both went out onto the stairs and there was a brief conversation in lowered voices. They came back; he could see that Willow was wearing her Resolve Face, and he wondered wearily what new horror they had planned. He was too tired...

Too tired to respond, but not too tired to be startled when Willow, standing between him and the window, peeled her sweatshirt over her head, and followed it with her shirt, before pushing trousers and socks off, and crawling into bed. He managed one pathetic burst of action, enough to move him away from her, oh, maybe as much as three inches, before he hit the body behind him: Xander, stripped, from the feel of it, to his shorts, and spooning up behind Giles.

“Lie still, Big Guy,” he admonished. “Gonna get you up to temperature one way or another.” He slung an arm over Giles’ waist and pulled himself close, chest to Giles’ back, legs tucked in. The blessed warmth poured off him into Giles’ frigid flesh, and he relaxed a little, easing muscles he hadn't known were spasmed, until Willow squirmed back and reached for his hand, drawing it over her ribs and tucking it under her, his wrist rasping on the band of her bra _pink,_ it had been pink, Willow was wearing a matched pink set of underwear and if he didn’t die of cold he would die of shame that he had even _noticed_ , and oh dear lord, her knickers were small behind, hardly more than a strip bisecting her arse, and there was nothing really between him and her except the fabric of his pyjamas and he absolutely _mustn’t_ die now, because he couldn’t imagine that what he was thinking would count in his favour at any sort of judgment.

But he couldn’t manage speech, and he couldn’t muster an argument anyway, he was so tired and so cold, and beginning to shake uncontrollably, at which Xander made a satisfied noise.

“Yeah, _that’s_ better. Relax, Giles, and just let it happen. If you’re shivering, it means your body’s caught up with the fact that it’s cold, and it’s starting to do something about it. Don’t fight it.”

He couldn’t. He was too tired. He just lay there, sandwiched between them, long tremors running through his body, until his mind stilled and he slept.


	3. Evaporating

He was comfortable, with his nose in Deidre’s hair, and Ethan cuddled up behind him. He didn’t get the coveted middle position very often; Ethan was a selfish lover, and generally managed to manoeuvre himself to the middle, to the warmest spot. Ripper longed to have a flat with proper insulation and heating, a thermostat that worked all the time, and a timer to make the place decently warm _before_ he woke up. Or before Ethan woke him up. He never let Ripper sleep long enough, either: he was a light sleeper himself and as soon as he was awake, he would be bored and trying to wake somebody else. He had learned the hard way not to wake Philip, who tended to violence on the person who disturbed his eight hours, but Ripper was seen as fair game. Ethan was awake now: he had said something in a sleepy voice. Ripper wasn’t interested enough to ask him to repeat it, but if Ethan was awake they would all be awake shortly, and if he could wake Deidre _gently_ she might be willing for the slow, sleepy sex which he enjoyed as much as Ethan’s explosive rutting.

He shifted, wondering lazily how long he had before Ethan kicked off. Not long, if the erection being snuggled into the cleft of his arse was anything to go by. He gave a little wriggle, to show Ethan that he was awake, and aware, and oh well, he supposed so, willing, and felt a gentle rock of the hips behind him in response. He kissed the back of Deidre’s shoulder and nipped the skin lightly, murmuring some suggestion to catch her interest. Her breast rounded softly into his hand; she’d still got her bra on, God only knew why, unless she’d been drunk when she came to bed. He rasped his thumb very gently across the fabric, feeling her nipple harden under his touch, and he flicked lightly to and fro. He loved Deidre’s breasts, loved to play with them, and she loved it too, would let him do it for hours. Odd how different everything felt through her bra: it was almost as if her breasts were smaller. Maybe that was something to do with her being dead?

His hand froze.

For a split second, he hoped that it _was_ Deidre, and she _was_ dead, and he was dead too. Because if he wasn’t dead, that wasn’t Deidre, that was Willow, _he was feeling Willow up_ , and oh good _lord_ , that was Xander's cock wedged in the crease of his pyjamas.

“Don’t stop,” murmured Willow comfortably.

Xander teased him later, telling him that he had screamed; he put on his Cross Librarian expression and denied it, but he was horribly afraid that it might have been true. He certainly shot upright in the bed, fighting the covers to get away from Willow, which only put him closer to Xander who wrapped both arms around his waist and held him still.

“Hey, it’s O.K., Giles, it’s only us.”

Yes, that was the _problem_.

“Let’s have a look at you?” Xander ran a hand quickly up his arm and across his chest, touched his forehead briefly and smiled. “You’ve only been asleep a couple of hours but you look way better. Anything hurt?”

He shook his head mutely. Several things did, in fact, hurt, but not with more than the dull ache of cramped and overused muscles.

“You’re a better colour, and you feel the right temperature and,” Xander glanced downwards and there was amusement in his voice, “everything seems to be in working order.”

“Be _quiet_ , Xander! Willow, I, I, I do apologise, it’s, it’s, it was just...”

Willow smiled impishly at him. “I could tell what it was just, Giles. What we need to know now, is whether it was just for me, or just for Xander, or for both of us to share.”

He stared at her, utterly mortified. It was no surprise, ever, that Xander would tease him any way he could, but he didn’t expect such cruelty from Willow. The pain ran through him and he turned his head away. He had thought that once they had got past their schooldays and the boring librarian, they had found a place for him as their friend. Obviously he had been wrong. His throat closed, and he fought to keep his face impassive: if Willow could be so casually unkind, what must Xander, and oh God, Buffy, think of him?

“Will,” Xander's voice was dismayed. “Will, he doesn’t understand.” His arms were still resting around Giles’ waist; his grip tightened as Giles tried to get up. “Giles, she means it. You were talking in your sleep, yeah? You thought I was Ethan Rayne, and...”

“Yes, yes, I know,” he snapped bitterly. “I thought she was Deidre. That doesn’t mean that I... that you...”

“It means,” said Willow gently, knee-walking across the bed to him and taking his hand, which he allowed to lie limply in hers, “that Xan and I were right when we guessed that you and your group were... a bit more than friends, yeah? That sometimes you weren’t just couples, either. I mean, we all saw that you and Ethan had something between you.”

He cringed, visibly, and Willow’s face creased with concern. Behind him, Xander made an oddly unhappy sound; his arms tightened again on Giles, and he rested his chin on Giles’ shoulder. Willow went on.

“We guessed that a while back. We talked about it. We talked about _you_. We wondered if you would... you know, with us.”

He stared at her and then turned away. His head spun; he made the only sense of her words that he could. “I don’t need – I don’t _want_ ,” he spat, “a pity fuck.”

“Nobody offered you one,” said Xander briskly; Willow’s face was crumpled with hurt and Giles wouldn’t look at her. “And anyway, would hardly be that way round, would it? We owe you, Will and me, and we know it. You stopped that Slogr long enough for Buffy to kill it; if you hadn't done that, it would have killed all of us, and it damn near killed you as it was.”

“Yes, well, I don’t want a gratitude fuck either.” Even to his own ears he sounded petulant, and Xander made a sound of annoyance in his ear; Willow, though, seemed to understand, for her expression had shifted from unhappiness on her own behalf, he thought, to unhappiness on his.

“Giles, why do you think so _little_ of yourself? Why do you think so little of _us_? Why do you think that nobody would offer you anything better than a pity fuck?” She made a face at the term and added, “And why do you think that we would be so horrible as to offer you one? We love you far too much for that. We... we wanted... not for pity or gratitude or any of that. Just because we love you. If you don’t want to...” she shrugged, but her mouth turned down.

Xander agreed, mouth by Giles’ ear, chin still on his shoulder. “Just because we love you, Giles. And maybe a little,” he sounded considering, “because we’re still alive. All of us.”

Giles trembled and knew that Xander felt it. “I’m too old,” he said, begging them to understand.

Xander snorted. “We’re thirty-eight,” he objected. “Well, together we are.”

Willow smiled. “Even if you don’t add us together, Giles, we’re both of age. We know what we’re asking for.” She searched his face and presumably saw his resolve crumbling, for she dropped his hand, slid her own around his neck and rested her forehead on the shoulder Xander wasn’t using. His hand, despite himself, came up to touch her hair, and Xander's hand, resting on his forearm, slipped over his wrist to touch Willow too.  

He was lost. His hand moved over Willow’s hair and she turned a little further, pressing her mouth to his shoulder; he could feel her breath warm and damp through the fabric of his shirt. Xander's mouth was working on the side of his neck; teeth set lightly in his earlobe and he shivered. Xander made a faint questioning sound and slipped the free hand underneath Giles’ shirt and it was as if his skin sparked. The shirt was shifting up his body, lifting on Xander's wrist as the fingers discovered chest hair, sneaking up his back under Willow’s less obvious ministrations. He was melting as they pushed gently at him, settling him on his back, the shirt lost over his head and abandoned on the floor.

The first touch of Willow’s mouth on his chest took his breath away and left him curiously passive, almost inert. They could do with him what they wished; he would deny them nothing. Xander was tugging at his waistband and he lifted his hips obediently. He was pliant, until Willow brought his hand back to the fabric of her bra and asked impishly, “Are you taking this off or shall I get Xander to do it?”

He did it, leaving the ridiculous scrap of her knickers to Xander; he still thought she might change her mind. But he was rousing, mentally as well as physically; he was beginning to believe what was happening. Willow’s hands on his face, Willow’s lips on his body, Xander's fingers tracing the long scar on his thigh made it impossible to disbelieve any longer. Xander's voice in his ear, whispering to Willow that she was beautiful, she was hot – and he agreed with both of those – that they were going to make her feel so good, was not to be ignored. He dropped his head to Willow’s breast, breathing gently on the skin, trying a soft lick, one eye on her face. He wondered how he could have mistaken these for Deidre’s breasts. Deidre had been bigger – rounder, broader in the back than Willow and more generously endowed in front; Willow was slender all over, and he could hide a breast completely in his big hand, but she seemed to like what he did as much as Deidre ever had. He had more sense – more experience – than to think that any woman would automatically like what another had liked, but Willow shivered and purred when he mouthed at her nipples, and squeaked happily when he set his teeth gently in her flesh. It _had_ to be true: this was what she wanted. And Xander, dividing his time between Willow and Giles, nudging Giles’ head up from Willow’s body to take his share of the kisses, leaning across to nip at Giles’ chest as Giles nipped at Willow, murmuring approval as Willow stroked his hip and teased his cock, Xander was as strange and as familiar as Willow.

He still managed to be surprised when Willow became more demanding, when she hooked an ankle around him, making it plain that he, and not Xander, was expected to... his mind skittered away from actually putting it into words, but when she said rather breathlessly, “Not on the pill, Giles, you got any... anything?” he nodded, and reached for the drawer beside the bed.

Xander leaned with him, peering, and said smugly, “G-Man’s got all the kit, Will; told you he would have,” and Giles found himself blushing, not at possessing things he would never have mentioned to Xander, but at Xander's casual assumption that he would.

And yet he hesitated, even with the foil in his hand, until Willow made a clucking noise which all the _not calling them children, not now_ which they all assured him he made when he was exasperated, took the condom from his fingers and rolled it onto him with exaggerated care.

“Now, Giles, please?”

He had never been good at denying Willow things, even when he should; he couldn’t now. She was tight but slick and ready, and she sighed happily as he pushed home, one of Xander's big hands resting on his arse and the other playing with Willow’s hair.

“All right?” It was a stupid question, but she nodded, and he settled on his forearms. He had learned early in his sexual career that a man of his size needed to keep most of his weight off his partner. It wasn’t just his unspoken admiration for assertive women that had made him more amenable than Ethan or Philip or Thomas to having Deidre on top. He kissed Willow, hips unmoving, until she gave a little squirm of impatience, and then, finally, he relaxed, grinned and began to move.

It was bliss. It was pure heaven. It went on and on and it was... it was Willow, and Xander beside him, kissing whatever bits of Willow or Giles he could reach, apparently happy to touch either one of them. He felt happiness swell inside him; Willow curled her back and wrapped her arms around his neck, murmuring his name with such affection that for a moment he had to turn his face into her shoulder. He would have been happy to keep on doing precisely what he was doing until... well, until the next apocalypse and possibly beyond, but Xander was urging him on and Willow was squirming impatiently, arching her body beneath him, as if reaching for something, straining. He shifted to get a slightly different angle, trying to read what she needed, touching and stroking, and she strained again, shifted her own body against his and...

She was crying.


	4. Vaporising

He froze, mid-stroke.

“Willow?”

Her mouth twisted and her eyes were shut, tears squeezing out between her lids, sliding sideways over her temples into her hair. “I can’t do it!”

He was off her instantly, a foot away, arousal failing with humiliating speed; she rolled face down into the pillow and he met Xander's horrified eyes as he scrabbled to the bottom of the bed, yanking the condom off and flinging it at the bin, tugging pyjama trousers back on. He had known – he had _known_ this was a bad idea! And he couldn’t even go: this was his own house, not hers.

“I, I, I...”

Xander, looking as shaken as Giles felt, was slightly more practical. He touched Willow’s shoulder tentatively. “Will? What... what’s wrong?” He looked up, his expression a mixture of bewilderment and accusation. “Was Giles hurting you?”

She shook her head miserably, face still turned into the pillow. Giles swallowed hard, and pulled his shirt back on. “I thought I’d be able to with you!” she wailed; both Giles and Xander winced, and Giles stood up.

“If you’ve changed your mind, Willow, of course I, I won’t...” He managed to bite back the other half of his thought: _you were keen enough when I started, I couldn’t have known!_

It seemed, though, that she heard what he didn’t say, because she turned over, pushing herself up on her hands to stare at him. “Oh, no, Giles, it wasn’t...”

“Please don’t say that it’s not me, it’s you,” he snapped. “You don’t want to and that’s enough reason for me.”

Her face crumpled into tears again and her voice broke. “You don’t _understand_!”

No. He didn’t. Apparently neither did Xander, but he, possibly because he wasn’t as totally fuck-hazy as Giles, was capable of asking. He stretched out beside Willow, gathered her against his shoulder, and kissed her forehead gently. “Will? I don’t think anybody’s understanding anything, and you’re crying and Giles is upset. _Did_ you just change your mind?”

She shook her head woefully.

“ _What_ then? Was he hurting you?”

Another shake. Xander cuddled her even closer, and spoke softly into her skin. “Tell me?”

Still she hesitated; Giles reached for his dressing gown. “I’ll go downstairs,” he said unemotionally. “You can... Take, take as long as you like. You’ll do better without me.”

But she wailed again and came after him: “No, Giles, no, don’t go, I’m sorry, it wasn’t, I _promise_ it wasn’t anything you did, it’s me.”

He wanted to be able to put her hands aside and go; she had hurt him and he wanted to be away from this horrible emotional scene, but it was Willow, and the only reason she _could_ hurt him so much was because he loved her. He shook out the dressing gown, and wrapped it around her; then he backed away and sat on the end of the bed. Xander took over again.

“ _What’s_ you, Willow?”

She looked at the fabric of Giles’ dressing gown and they could both see her search for words. The weave was fascinating, it seemed.

“I can’t... I never have. Not with... not with anybody else. Not with... well, not with Oz. I never told him, I pretended: it wasn’t his fault! And I thought I could with you, Giles, I was sure I’d be able to! I wanted to and I kept nearly... and then I couldn’t!”

He stared at her blankly, processing this, understanding it and not understanding it at all. “But, but if you’d said, Willow, I would have...” It seemed they were going to have a totally cringe-making conversation with absolutely no nouns in it at all, and only the most non-specific verbs. “It’s not... I’m not so vain that I would be offended. Not so stupid either. It’s not as if it’s a new concept to me.” He carefully avoided mentioning Oz. If he thought about it – and he would much prefer _not_ to think about it – he didn’t believe that Oz would have been shocked or offended either. On the other hand, Oz, for all his calm maturity, was barely older than the others, and his experience was probably insufficient for him to have spotted a problem which Willow was deliberately keeping back from him.

“Um, guys? Being very slow and stupid here, but it’s like... what? Not getting what’s wrong.”

Giles retrieved his spectacles from the bedside table and polished them on the hem of his shirt.

“Xander, I think I must ask you some questions you may find impertinent.”

Xander cocked his head, and looked worried.

“Are, are you aware that it is possible for you to get a girl pregnant even if it’s her first time?”

Xander looked blankly uncomprehending, but he nodded.

“And that she can still get pregnant even if you do it standing up?”

“Well, duh.”

“Excellent, excellent. You know that cling film and Sellotape – yes, all right, Saran Wrap and Scotch Tape – cannot be used to create a viable contraceptive?”

Xander blinked hard, a smile beginning to form on his face. “The version I heard was a sandwich bag and a rubber band, but yeah, they told us it didn’t work.”

“I’m so glad. The, the students rarely came to me for assistance with their research for health classes; generally I believe they preferred to sneak down to the shelves when they thought I wasn’t there, and find what they wanted to know unaided. Of, of course, I’m all in favour of original research, so I didn’t, I didn’t interfere, but I’m beginning to wonder if, if that was a mistake.”

“Huh?”

“I just wanted to be certain that the _rest_ of the nonsense which I remember being bruited about as fact when I was your age isn’t still being touted as gospel. If I’ve understood correctly,” he said calmly, “Willow is saying that she finds penetrative intercourse ultimately unsatisfying.” He put his glasses on, and gazed at them. “Like, in my opinion and experience, fifty per cent of adult women. I was under the impression that the myth that all a woman needed was a hard prick had, had long since been exploded.” He ignored Willow’s mortified whine and Xander's dawning look of embarrassed comprehension. Presumably he had bought into the party line too. “Willow... what, what have you been reading? Have you been reading that soft-porn tripe which used to go around the library during study periods?”

It was Xander who squeaked this time; Giles bent his gaze on him. “I must have confiscated a novel a week from the likes of, of, from that little group of girls with the ridiculous names. Rainbow and Treasure and Aerosol, or, or whatever her name was.”

Xander pondered. “Aliselle?”

“Them. They brought in vast novels with cover art showing men with unreasonably shaped torsos looming over women with, with bosoms so large that they would have been condemned to a life of back pain, dressed in historically inaccurate costumes, most of which were ripped. Rather a lot of them appeared to be about the, the English aristocracy, theoretically at least, with the ranks in the wrong order, the abbreviations inaccurate and no clear idea of how names and titles work. One of them had a female baronet, I remember that. Presumably the author viewed the word as feminine and went from there. Badly written, badly plotted, and totally derivative. Elinor Glyn, but less precise, and with the rude words left in. Historical drivel and, and badly written sex scenes in which it was implied that the hero only had to touch the heroine and she would come screaming.” He shifted his gaze from Xander to Willow. “Repeatedly. Inevitably, she was a virgin; half the sex scenes were badly disguised rape fantasies, but the orgasm didn’t appear to be optional, no matter what the hero did. Willow?” He paused and she looked away; he allowed his voice to soften. “I think I must confiscate your library card and make you bring everything to me for approval before you read it. Maybe it wasn’t the magic books I should have forbidden.” She had pulled her knees up, wrapping the skirts of his dressing gown around them, and pushing her face down into the fabric; what he could see of her cheeks and ears was crimson. He reached over and tugged lightly on her hair. “Have you been reading those, Willow? And what else?”

In a choked voice she named one or two works of a more medical cast. He sighed. “And you people say that _I’m_ old-fashioned? Very well. Willow, you said that you, that you and Xander had deduced that my relationship with, with Ethan and Deidre and the others was, was partly sexual. Presumably, then,” and he let an eyebrow climb, although Willow was still hiding her face; Xander was paying attention, though. “Presumably you are also aware that in my youth, I was, not to put too fine a point on it, promiscuous. Ugly word, ugly behaviour. I have slept, Willow, with a _lot_ of women. I, I, I would say that half of them required something other than straightforward penetration.” She had turned her head a little; she was listening, although she wouldn’t yet look at him. “I, ah, I also think that the multi-orgasmic woman is a good deal rarer than the literature would tend to suggest, although that may, of course, be, be due to shortcomings in my own technique.” He glared at Xander, theatrically. “If you repeat that outside this bedroom, I, I will stake you.”

“Was hoping you would,” murmured Xander, getting a tiny giggle from Willow. He dared to come closer, to lie down again, encouraging Willow to lie down too, facing Xander, still wrapped in his dressing gown. He closed in behind her, an arm across her waist, hands still, non-threatening.

“Shut your eyes. Now: tell me, Willow, do you own a vibrator?”

She trembled, and shook her head. “Hmph. All right. Never mind me, or...” he saw the danger of mentioning Oz, and retreated; “or anybody else you’ve been, been intimate with. When you’re on your own, can you, ah...” He reached unsuccessfully for a delicate phrase, but Willow forestalled him.

“Yes.” It was hardly more than a whisper.

“Good. Then there is no genuine difficulty other than your conviction – idiotic girl – that you are _required_ to go the distance on, on nothing but cock. _Idiotic_ girl.” The words were harsh but his tone was a caress and she knew it, daring to turn back to him, a little shyly still. He slipped his hand inside the robe and she jumped; he pulled at her gently until she lay in the curve of his right arm, his left hand resting on her belly. “How do you like to be touched? Xander and I want to know.” Her eyes were huge and she was apparently incapable of speech; he went on as if commenting on nothing more shocking than the weather. “You see, the easiest way to get us to touch you the way that you like, is to tell us. Or show us. Would you like to show us? Or shall I just find out?” He rather thought that the practical demonstration might still be beyond her. He let his fingers slide, his eyes still on her face; her knee came up automatically, because she was still tense and embarrassed, but he waited, and slowly the leg straightened again.

“You were nearly there,” he told her gently. “Let me try. Talk to me. Tell me what you like.” His fingers curled over to her centre, and she jumped a little; he stilled, and waited for the tension in her thighs to ease, and her legs to fall a little open. “Good girl. Slowly, like this? Softly?” It was hardly more than a tickle: she would tell him, one way or another, if she needed firmer handling.

“A bit harder,” she said in a strangled voice; her face was red and her eyes shut again.

“Your wish is my command. And,” he settled himself so that he could breathe into her ear, and she need hardly answer him aloud at all; at the same time he nodded at Xander, who understood, and started to stroke and kiss at her skin. “Do you like it when I touch here? Is it good when I slip a finger right inside you?”

She hesitated and he was quick to reassure. “Some women say they feel more when they have something inside to grip. Some say the sensation is more intense when they haven’t. Which are you, Willow?” He slipped a second finger inside, and when she squeezed back, he ran his thumb lightly over her clit and she cried out.

“Too much? Or is that good? Tell me what you like, sweetheart, darling girl, Willow, tell me how to make it good for you. Harder? Faster?” Her hips were lifting to his palm; he was getting this right, but the angle was awkward. He drew his hand away and she whined; he soothed. “I know, pet, I know. Let’s give you everything.” He twisted to reach the box of condoms again and flipped one across the bed and then slipped his fingers back between her thighs. “Xander's going to fuck you and I’m going to keep doing that, and between us we’re going to make you feel so good...” He set a finger on either side of her clit, searching for the ridge beneath the skin, and she jumped when he squeezed it. “Too much?” and when she nodded, he skated a fingertip lightly over the top instead. “Better?” He waited while Xander got himself into position, whispering to Willow, and pushed slowly into her; then he started again, stroking, tickling, whispering encouragement. She was wet, and Xander was telling her how good it all felt, spine curved over her as he bent to take kisses, and Giles’ balls ached with the desire to have them, to have them both. Xander was babbling, no surprise there, Giles had babbled too, even if only inside his own head. He concentrated on Willow, warned by the change in pitch from Xander that she was nearly there and risking a little more pressure, a little faster.

She wasn’t a screamer; he would have been surprised if she had been, Lord knows why. She was nearly silent, an expression almost of surprise on her face, as if her orgasm, at the last, had sneaked up on her; her legs locked around Xander but it was to Giles that she turned her face, and it was Giles who took the kiss while Xander stiffened and groaned and collapsed with his head between Willow’s breasts.

He would almost have been embarrassed enough to try to leave again, but Willow was chasing him for more kisses and Xander flung an arm out and landed a hand on his shoulder, half pulling at him; when he slid free of Willow and discarded the condom, he seemed to want to find some means of cuddling Giles as well as Willow. They lay, for several minutes, with Giles trying not to wonder what to do next, before Xander said in a dazed voice, “Hey, Giles, you got some of that for me too? Because just at the moment I’m a tiny bit dead, but as soon as I’m not I want you to do me like you did her. I’m guessing it’s all in the research and attention to detail, ‘cause I felt her go, and hey, I know who did all the work there.”

His cock jumped, and the younger, wilder Giles elbowed the staid librarian out of the way and said brashly, “Oh, I haven’t finished with her yet. We haven’t established if she’s done now, or if she’s good for a second round.” He looked into Willow’s face, flushed and beautiful. “What do you think, heart? Will I make you sore if I try again?”

She frowned thoughtfully, the way she used to frown over her schoolwork although he _really_ didn’t want to picture her in school. “I... I don’t know, Giles. Do... is it... do most women...”

“Some women like to go again, some are too sensitive, some are switched off and need a break to re-prime. All of them are normal. If you ask if what you do is normal, I shall spank you. Hard.”

She dimpled at him. “Not a viable threat, Giles: used to daydream about you spanking me in the library.”

Somebody made a strangled noise; he decided that it would be better for it to have been Xander, but he was afraid it had been him.

“Try again? I mean, you’ll stop if I don’t like it, or it hurts, right?”

He nodded; Xander heaved himself over to watch, and Giles traced a single finger through Willow’s sopping curls, and with barely a touch, over her clit. She shivered, mouth opening.

“Oh... I think I might be... it might be too much. I dunno... go very gently, Giles, yeah?”

He winked at Xander – and worked himself between Willow’s thighs. He saw her realise what he meant to do and she tensed, so he waited, his expression questioning.

“Oh... really? You...”

“I like doing it,” he said simply. “If you don’t want me to, I won’t, or if you don’t like it, I’ll stop.”

This time the strangled noise was definitely Xander. “Oh God, Will, let him? I gotta see this.”

Giles looked at Xander. “You’ve never done it?”  

Xander shook his head. “Locker room talk was that if a guy could do it, a girl would do _anything_ for him, but that it was, um...” The word ‘gross’ hung, unspoken. Giles nodded.

“Well, my experience, certainly, is that a man who will do it will, will never lack female partners, and it hardly seems fair that I should want a woman to do for me what I’m not willing to do for her.” He placed a gentle kiss on the inside of each of Willow’s thighs. “May, may I?”

She nodded, nervously; he stayed for a minute or so on her thighs, kissing, biting gently, rubbing at the tendon until she began to relax again. Then he licked a single broad swathe upwards and Willow bucked. He waited, but there was no complaint, so he settled himself more comfortably on his elbows – and set to work.

He hadn't been lying: he _did_ like to do it and it appeared that she liked to have it done. He could taste the latex of the condom Xander had used, but it wasn’t strong enough to be off-putting, and everything else was pure Willow. She squirmed when he flickered his tongue; she bucked when he went fast and hard, and when he felt her hands on his head and he hummed interrogatively, she howled, pulled his hair and came, dropping back exhausted onto the bed. Job well done, Giles. He worked clear of her, pulling his shirt over his head and wiping his face on it before dropping it on the floor, and Xander hit him like a missile, mouth clamped on his, hands everywhere, trying to kiss and talk both at once. For the second time, Xander's hands stripped his pyjamas away and Willow’s hands drew him down onto the bed, and this time his thought was less ‘are you serious about this?’ and more ‘for the love of God will _one_ of you get me off?’

From Willow’s giggle, he thought he might have said that aloud. Xander agreed. “Yeah. Me. Now. That was _hot_ , Giles, that was so fucking hot, and all I could think was ‘me next, me next’.

His cock jumped visibly, foreskin pulling back, tip slick and shiny; Willow giggled again, and again, Giles fought for control. He was desperate, but it had already been established that they knew less than he had anticipated; he _had_ to go slowly. “Have you done this before?”

“Done it before, liked it, know how, found your lube, had two fingers in my own ass for the last five minutes.”

“Well done,” agreed Giles hoarsely, as for the second time, Willow rolled a condom onto him. He reached for the tube himself: there was no such thing as too much lube, particularly with a new lover. Willow wriggled to one side, making room for Xander, who knelt, and wiggled his arse.

“How do you want me, Big Guy? Hands and knees? On my back? On top?”

“Now,” grunted Giles, grabbing his hips. “Knees. Oh God.” For all that he was trying to tell himself to show some control, that was a bit quick; Xander's babble cut off on an indrawn breath. “Sorry. Sorry. Too fast. But _fuck_ , I want you.” His own voice broke and suddenly Willow was there, a hand on Xander's back, leaning in to kiss Giles, keeping him steady just long enough for Xander to gasp and relax.

“’Kay. I – can you go slow? Just for a minute?”

He could. Now he could, now that he was buried to the balls inside Xander. Not at all like Willow: there was no softness to Xander, there was muscle under his palms. Xander wasn’t accommodating and wet and open, Xander... with Xander he could think of taking as well as giving. No. Be as gentle with Xander as he had been with Willow. Slowly. Xander shifted, and obviously found what he had been reaching for, because suddenly he was shoving hard back against Giles.

“Yeah. Yeah. Give it to me, Giles...”

It was all the encouragement he needed. Gentleness be damned, his hips snapped and drove; he wasn’t going to last five minutes at this rate, and Xander had got off once already.

“Willow? Help him?”

She gaped at him for a moment; she had been watching, oh yes, she had been staring shamelessly, but it took her a moment to catch his meaning. Then she smirked at them both and reached for the lube, slicking her palm and wriggling down the bed to wrap her hand around Xander's cock.

“ _Fuck_ , Willow...”

“You already did,” Giles pointed out, gasping the words into Xander's ear. “ _My_ turn next time, and you can fuck me. Want to feel you. Want to feel you both at once, feel you fill me, feel Willow all round me.” Her hand was on Xander but she was leaning against him; he bit her shoulder and she cried out softly, and Giles came, explosively, landing wrung out on Xander's back. He vibrated like a string on his own guitar, on and on, through his own orgasm and the aftershocks of Xander's.

Then his body reminded him that actually, it was still the middle of the night, that he wouldn’t see forty-five again, that he’d had a fight and a sprint and a freeze and a shock and some bloody _amazing_ sex, and that what would be good now would be a kip, and possibly, when he woke up again, which was likely to be some time in the next century, some tea. He managed to get the condom off, and to tidy himself – and Xander – up a bit but all control systems were closing down. Oh good lord, a gentleman didn’t just roll over and go to sleep, but thank heavens, Xander seemed to be feeling the same way, and Willow was cuddling into his shoulder. _See, Ethan? Sometimes I get to go in the middle._

He was asleep.


	5. Condensing

It was daylight when he woke up and he was alone in the bed. He might have thought that he had imagined it all, but actually, now he _did_ hurt. He ached more or less all over, he felt sticky and stupid, the bed was a shambles and the air in the room was stale.

He had no idea how he felt about the fact – the state of the sheets made it plain that it _was_ a fact – that he had bedded not one but _two_ of his ex-students. At once.

_They_ bedded _you_ , pointed out his... did he have an anti-conscience? He could almost have believed in the cartoon angel and devil on his shoulders. The little devil, which in his mind bore a touching resemblance to Spike, reckoned that both Xander and Willow were of age and he didn’t work in a school any more and anyway it had all been their idea and he had been in shock and half dead and in any event _somebody_ needed to tell Willow that her ideas were misplaced.

His angel sucked its teeth and looked disapproving and disturbingly like Wesley. Just his luck to get Wesley Wyndham-Price as his angel; he said as much, out loud, aware that it didn’t make a great deal of sense. Nonetheless, Giles, once past his years of youthful rebellion, had always tried not to let self-deception sway him. He thought about explaining to Wesley that his reaction to ‘let’s have sex’ from Willow and Xander had been... well, hadn't even been ‘yes, let’s’. It had been, to use the local vernacular, more along the lines of ‘yeah, whatever’.

He could not persuade himself that it would have gone over well with Wesley. Or Quentin Travers. Or Principal Snyder. It had been a most improper thing for him to have done. The fact that he hadn't been in his right mind (the Spike-demon sniggered and made a rude comment about him _having_ a right mind) was not an excuse. He would have to apologise, most abjectly, to both Willow and Xander. He would have to make it plain to them that there could be no repetition of such happenings.

The Spike-demon pointed out that he couldn’t have it both ways. If it had been all his fault, Xander and Willow wouldn’t _want_ to repeat it. If they wanted to repeat it, then it hadn't been his fault and he didn’t need to apologise.

Giles and Wesley told Spike to shut up.

Well, Xander and Willow had gone, so he could... he could...

He could put on his dressing gown, open the window to air the room, and change the bed, for a start. And then he could go and have a shower and some coffee and breakfast and think about what the _hell_ he was going to do or say to Xander and Willow. He pulled the sheet free of the mattress and dropped it in a heap on the floor, finding a clean one and shaking it free of its folds.

“Oh, good idea, but you should have called for me to come and help. Big bed’s hard on your own.”

He jumped and turned; Xander was holding out a mug of coffee. “Willow’s in the shower; I’ve had mine. Borrowed your razor, hope you don’t mind. We had breakfast without you, but I heard you moving about, guessed you’d be ready for coffee. Which cover do you want, this blue one or the grey?”

He could think of nothing useful to say; he took the coffee, shrugged over the choice of bedding, and remade the bed with Xander. It seemed... ungrateful to start at once on ‘that was a ghastly mistake and we mustn’t do it again’ and unfair to do it with Willow absent; on the other hand, Xander helping him to make the bed seemed to be... seemed to have implications with which he was not altogether comfortable, or so he told himself, although Spike-on-his-shoulder was suggesting that he should drink his coffee and then have Xander for breakfast.

Wesley-on-his-shoulder was horrified. Xander was babbling, and Giles was too bewildered even to hazard a guess about whether this was normal babbling, post-coital babbling or embarrassed babbling. Perhaps Xander had angels and demons too? A little Spike of his own telling him that seducing a Watcher was a good thing to do, to stop the Watcher from being quite so far up himself, and a... probably not a Wesley but possibly actually a Giles, telling him that teenagers with no academic tendencies had nothing to offer an Oxford educated Watcher?

And Willow... he couldn’t manage to imagine Willow with either an angel or a demon. Willow would have a flow chart. Seduce Watcher Y/N?

“Giles? Anybody home? You’re looking a bit... distracted.”

He whipped off his spectacles and began to polish. “I – yes. Well. It, it...” He heard the bathroom door, and Willow’s footsteps moving towards the kitchen and turned towards his wardrobe. “I, I’ll, I think I need a shower myself.”

Long arms wrapped around his waist. “Good idea. All get clean and then maybe we can think about all getting dirty again?” A kiss was pressed to the back of his neck, a big hand patted his arse cheek – he jumped and made an odd sound – and Xander clattered away, down to Willow.

Giles panicked. Only for a moment, but it was definite panic, and then he picked out clothes – solid, stolid, tweedy, _English_ clothes, collared shirt and tie and waistcoat – and bolted for the bathroom, locking the door behind him with a distinct sense of relief.

The man in the mirror looked... odd. Unfamiliar. He was wearing Giles’ face but Giles felt he didn’t recognise him: he didn’t know the sort of man who would sleep with his ex-students. _And like it_ , prompted the Spike-demon.

He shaved, carefully not thinking that Xander had done the same, brushed his teeth, avoiding his normal daily thought that it was unusual for a bachelor’s bathroom to contain four distinct in-use toothbrushes.

He turned on the shower and hung up his dressing gown. Hot water might help with his aches and pains. _And a blast of cold at the end to get your brain in gear_ , the Wesley-angel suggested acidly, _and perhaps to remind your body that you’re not a bloody teenager._ He reached for soap. Perhaps he could wash away everything: the surprise, the guilt, the greed for more, the recollection of Willow's mouth on his nipples, Xander spreading his legs invitingly _not thinking about that any more!_ He washed himself briskly. He was _not_ thinking about more sex! _Liar!_ Came from both angel and demon, one disapproving, one sniggering. He was _not_ thinking about Willow in the shower with him, wet and slippery, glistening with water, soapsuds dripping between her breasts. He was _not_ thinking about picking her up, bracing her against the tiles, slipping into her, hands sliding and gripping... He was _not_ thinking about Xander, water pouring over him, an arm around Giles’ neck, mouths fused, hands exploring...

He looked down.

His cock looked up.

“You aren’t helping,” he admonished it quietly. Perhaps angel-Wesley was right about the blast of cold water.

He was, it seemed. It didn’t make Giles like him any better. But while he dried himself he did manage to put together a script – which angel-Wesley approved, although demon-Spike whined about it being unnecessary because everybody was of age and didn’t Giles deserve to get laid once in a while and if ‘a while’ was about every six hours, why was that a problem? – to express that although he very much appreciated the care Xander and Willow had taken of him while he had been incapacitated, the rest of what they had done – and he wasn’t blaming them in the least, they had all been shocked, and he was at least as responsible for what had happened as they were...

He lost himself briefly in sub-clauses, rewrote the script once with and once without parentheses, pared it down to ‘that was fabulous and we mustn’t do it again’, decided that was too abrupt, explained mentally _why_ they mustn’t do it again, and admitted dismally that his argument was both dishonest and unconvincing.

Then he put on his tweed, marshalled his courage, gripped the first line of what he decided had been the least unpromising of his speeches and marched out of the bathroom.

“Good timing, Giles,” said Willow, handing him a plate of eggs. “I was just about to send Xander to see if you had drowned.”

Somehow it seemed rude to start straight onto his speech when she had made him breakfast, and anyway, he suddenly realised he was _starving_. Unfortunately, by the time he had eaten the eggs, he had completely lost the first line again, and none of what the other two were saying sounded remotely like his cue.

He couldn’t wait for his cue.

“I, I, I think we need to, to discuss what, what happened yesterday.”

“Yeah. Buffy shoulda been on that demon way before it could freeze you,” said Xander, unhelpfully.

“That, that’s not what I...”

“Xander, don’t tease him. Giles is talking about the sex,” scolded Willow, equally unhelpfully. He felt his cheeks heat and she smiled at him. “Giles, it was great. _You_ were great.” She blushed a little herself. “Specially when I was being all freak-out girl. I shoulda come and talked to you ages ago, shouldn’t I? You’d have sorted out what I needed to know.”

He had a sudden picture of school-age Willow turning up in the library to say ‘Giles, I need your help: I can’t come when I fuck.’ Even demon-Spike looked a bit green at that one.

His speech had vanished completely.

“That’s, that’s, I’m glad I was able to help you, Willow, but I really think... that is, I don’t think... We mustn’t ever do that again. I, I mean, I’m not assuming that you would want to do it again, either of you, but, but...”

“Well, hell, _I_ want to do it again,” said Xander, looking faintly insulted. “Willow, do you want to do it again?”

She nodded, her eyes on Giles, her smile slowly reverting to her more usual expression of faint worry. “Wasn’t it great for you, Giles?” The faint worry morphed to serious dismay. “Oh, it wasn’t! And I was all freaky and crying and you had to... and I’ve only been thinking that it was great for me and it wasn’t for you at all because...”

He had to stop her. “Willow, it was wonderful. _You_ were wonderful.” He looked round. “And so was Xander. But we can’t, we _mustn’t_ do it again.”

“Not getting that,” objected Xander stubbornly. “You liked it. We liked it. We liked you liking it. Willow liked you knowing what she needed, and I liked that too, and I liked that you’ve done stuff so you can tell us how to do it and I bet you’ve done stuff we’ve never even thought of and I want to start thinking of it and then start doing it. If you didn’t like it, that would be different.”

“Of course I liked it, but it’s not at all the right thing to do. We have to stop!”

“Why?”

It wasn’t usual for Xander to ask him a question he absolutely couldn’t answer. Tell him something he absolutely didn’t understand, yes, all the time.

“What would your parents think?” Even he knew that was weak.

Willow winced. “I think I don’t wanna tell my mom about this?”

“And, and Willow, don’t you think that’s evidence that it’s not something we should be doing? If it’s something that you and Xander can’t discuss with your families...”

“Giles, hello? Did you tell your dad about Ethan Rayne? About demon-raising?”

He looked away. “Yes, actually. My, my father and I were badly at odds. I would have told him anything I thought would hurt him.”

Xander winced and Willow’s face scrunched with dismay; he found it necessary to add, “We were, we were reconciled later. He wasn’t happy that some of my partners were men – that was very much a no-no for his generation – but he wouldn’t have cut me off for it.”

Xander rallied. “O.K., leave Ethan out of it. Leave the demon-raising stuff out of it. Did you tell your dad, I dunno, when you lost your virginity? When you were dating?”

“No. Yes.”

“In more detail than ‘I’m seeing someone, we’re not at the bringing her home stage yet’?”

“No.”

“O.K., you’ve seen my dad, you’ve seen my mom. Do you think I want to tell them _anything_? I’m not telling them about the vampire stuff, I’m not telling them about my relationships. It’s not because I’m ashamed of what we do, or of any of the people I’ve been... ya know. It’s because I’m ashamed of _them._ ” He considered. “Well, and because I can’t even begin to imagine how they might respond, not to any of it, except that it wouldn’t be of the good in any way. Willow? Why would you want not to tell your mom?”

“Really, Xander,” expostulated Giles; “why would Willow want to tell her mother that she’d been seduced by her high school librarian?”

Both of them laughed aloud. “Don’t think you did much of the seducing, Giles, and I don’t want to tell her because I don’t want her getting the idea that you’re available. She wouldn’t leave my dad, but she’s got single friends and she’s a demon matchmaker. And actually, Giles, now I think of it, if I told her about not understanding about... stuff, and about you making it all good for me... I think...” She shuddered. “Giles, when I was thirteen, and I started... ya know...”

He looked at her blankly and Willow hurried on. “She wanted to have a party for me. A Now You Are A Woman party.”

Xander whimpered. “Do I need to put my fingers in my ears, Will? Is there detail coming? Ickiness?”

“ _I_ put my fingers in my ears,” said Willow firmly. “I locked myself in my room. She kept talking about ‘bonding experiences’ and ‘coming of age’ and, and initiations and stuff.”

Giles struggled not to laugh at her indignation. “Well, but, but Willow, it’s quite a common thing to do. A lot of cultures celebrate a girl’s first, her first... and it _is_ a bonding experience with older women.”

“Do they do that in London?” demanded Willow.

He shook his head. “No.”

“Not so much in Sunnydale either. And she wasn’t talking about me and her and Aunt Alice and Cousin Jessica. She wanted to invite Uncle Sol and Xander and some kids from school.”

“And believe me, the horror I feel now at that idea is as nothing compared with the horror I would have felt at thirteen. That would have been the attack of wig to end all attacks of wig.” Xander was shuddering again.

Giles nodded. He was inclined to agree, and he’d have laid good money that Uncle Sol would too. But he didn’t see the point and he said so. Willow made a face.

“I’m just saying, if she found out that you had told me... stuff... she would want to make a big deal of it.” She waved her hands expressively. “She’d want to talk to you about it. Ask you what I hadn’t known. Ask how you’d shown me. Tell my dad. Probably tell Uncle Sol and Aunt Alice. Been grateful to you for teaching me. I don’t think she’d be bothered about you being older: she knows I don’t get young guys. She’d think you were a good idea because you know stuff and she’d keep making suggestions, and she’d want me to _share the experience_ with her.”

“Please don’t,” requested Giles, involuntarily.

“I won’t. I don’t want to have a, a Third Party Orgasm Celebration. That’s just for you and me and Xander, Giles.” She put her arms around his waist and leaned her head on his chest; he kissed her hair. Angel-Wesley waved anxiously to get his attention.

“Willow... I, I just can’t say that I think a relationship between us...” No, that wouldn’t do. They _had_ a relationship and he valued it. “You know that I love you, both of you, but...”

“But you don’t want to have sex with us,” Willow finished sadly.

“I do! Of course I do! What sort of bloody idiot would I be not to? But can’t you see, Willow, what a bad idea it is? When, when you know that Xander's parents would disapprove, that your parents... Willow, I can’t, I can’t believe that your mother would think I was anything other than a bad idea.”

“Which is why we’re not telling her,” said Xander sharply. “Not telling Willow’s parents. Not telling mine. Not ashamed of it, not denying it if somebody finds out, but not advertising.” (Angel-Wesley pointed out, in an injured tone, that Giles seemed to have abandoned his ‘not doing this again’ argument in the face of the other two transmogrifying it into ‘who are we going to tell’, and that he, angel-Wesley, had _noticed_ that Giles appeared to be agreeing that there was going to _be_ something not to tell. Demon-Spike cheered and agreed.) “Except... well, except the person we do have to tell is Buffy.”

Oh good lord, Buffy. He hadn't even thought about Buffy. His Slayer, his responsibility, and he hadn't thought about her. He could feel his eyes go wide; he met Xander's gaze and Xander grimaced.

“Uh, guys...” said Willow weakly.

“Well, that’s another reason why it would be a bad idea,” said Giles loudly. “I mean, Buffy would say...” He hadn't the first idea what Buffy would say except that it wouldn’t be ‘bless you all, use lots of lube, don’t get anybody pregnant’.

Xander made an affirmative noise. “Yeah, Buffy’s gonna foam at the mouth when she hears.”

“Xander...” said Willow, quietly.

“Unless we ask her to join in, and actually, I don’t think she would.”

No, Giles didn’t think so either, and anyway he did _not_ want her in his bed. He wasn’t sure why not – probably, as the others would have put it, a Watcher Thing – but he didn’t want her there.

“So I know I said we had to but... maybe better _not_ to tell Buffy after all?”

“Xander, I...” started Willow, but Giles interrupted.

“Xander, you must see that, that, that it’s not a, we can’t not tell her!” (Angel-Wesley threw his hands in the air in despair. Demon-Spike had lit a cigarette and was sitting up to watch the argument wearing the expression of someone with really good theatre tickets.)

“Why not?”

“We can’t hide things from her! We have to tell her what’s happening!”

“Yeah? Like she always tells us? Like she told you when Angel came back?”

He looked at the floor long enough to get a grip on his temper and hold back what he really wanted to say to Xander, long enough to remember that Xander and Willow also had offences to lay at Angelus’s door.

“Whatever... interactions you have with Buffy are your own concern. She is my Slayer and my relationship with her is... is different.” He looked up and fixed his gaze on Xander. “You will not criticise her behaviour to me. I have discussed with her my feelings about... about the time Angel came back. It is in the past now, and it is my business, and hers, and _not yours_.”

Willow and Xander exchanged glances. “Don’t agree with that,” said Xander shortly. “It’s not just the Watcher and the Slayer any more, is it? It’s the Scoobies. I know you didn’t want us to begin with but you got us, and frankly, Giles? After Angelus? It’s as well we were here to pick up Buffy’s pieces, because she ran out on you. O.K., I’ll buy that you don’t want us to interfere between her and you, but you can’t expect us not to notice that _she lied to you about Angel._ She lied to all of us, and when we found out she said it was none of our business. Fine. Buffy’s sex life is none of my business? Buffy’s sex life nearly got you killed, Giles. Got me a broken arm. Put Willow in the hospital. O.K., I can go with Buffy’s sex life being none of my business, but in that case, my sex life is none of hers. If you think we have to tell her, well, maybe we have to tell her but she doesn’t get a vote. Yeah, I agree, she’ll hate it, she’ll be pissed but she doesn’t get to share her opinion about it, and she doesn’t get to judge.” He looked sideways at Giles, an odd wincing glance and Giles realised that he was expecting Giles’ response to be anger.

It was actually more like surprise. He didn’t agree with Xander, but he understood what he was saying, and Xander had said it calmly and reasonably. Had said it like an adult, and part of Giles’ objections crumbled accordingly. “She _won’t_ like it,” he said inadequately.

“So either she’ll get over it or she’ll die mad,” chirped Willow; both Giles and Xander turned to look at her and she shrugged. “And one or the other’s already happening because Buffy already knows.”

Demon-Spike poured two stiff drinks and passed one of them, and a lit cigarette, to angel-Wesley. There was a long silence.

Giles searched for words and found only Xander's vocabulary. “Huh?” he said, weakly.

“She called this morning. You were still asleep and Xander was in the shower. She wanted to know how you were, and I told her you were fine, and then I thought, like you said, we can’t not tell her this, so I told her.”


	6. Sublimating

Xander swallowed hard. “Have we time to pack, or do we just run?” 

“Xan, we had to tell her, because she’d never have worked it out!”

“What would have been so bad about that?” asked Giles, aware that he had changed his mind three times in as many minutes about whether Buffy had to be told and whether there was anything to tell her. Willow wrinkled her nose.

“Sooner or later we’d have messed up and she would have found out, and then she woulda been pissed not just that we were doing it but that we hadn't told her. And she woulda been pissed with herself that she hadn't noticed and she’d have turned that into being pissed with us. Well, with you, mostly. She’s not good at spotting other people’s relationships.”

He opened his mouth to defend her and Willow shook her head at him. “Giles, she’s _not_. She never worked out how unkind she’d been using Xander to make Angel jealous. She never noticed when Xander and I were... when we were really unkind to Oz and Cordelia. She hadn't any good ideas when Cordelia and Xander were fighting, and when they were all on and off, she never knew which one they were if she didn’t open a door and walk into them either kissing or quarrelling. She didn’t notice,” her ears were tinging pink, “when you and her mom were – weren’t sure how you were – after the band candy thing and the mind-reading thing. She didn’t notice you and Miss Calendar until she walked in on you. She wouldn’t have seen this.”

“What” – his voice cracked. “What did she say?”

Willow had the grace to look a little guilty. “She went up to a pitch that only bats can hear. Then she made a noise like a turkey. Um, I was a bit bothered that she might think we were leaving her out, you know? So I asked if she wanted to come round and join in.”

The turkey noise was easier than Giles thought: he made it himself.

“Did she?” Xander asked the question; Giles wasn’t sure which answer he wanted. He didn’t think that Xander was sure which answer he wanted. (Angel-Wesley and demon-Spike were leaning forward, fascinated.)

“Definitely not.” (Demon-Spike peeled two banknotes off a roll and passed them to angel-Wesley who pocketed them with a smirk.) “She thinks Giles shouldn’t have sex ever, with anybody; she doesn’t want to have sex with you.”

Giles couldn’t help himself. “What about you?”

“The idea of having sex with me was even worse than having sex with you.”

(Angel-Wesley passed the two notes back.)

The bang on the door was sufficient to make them all jump: it didn’t seem to occur to anybody to answer it. They just stared at the woodwork for ten seconds, until the door opened a fraction and from outside, Buffy’s voice said crossly “Is it safe for me to come in or are you doing something wiggy?”

Not even the fact that it was Buffy and broad daylight was sufficient to overcome Giles’ refusal ever to invite anything in. “Nobody is doing anything... ah... ‘wiggy’.”

For all that, she came in with a hand over her eyes, parting her fingers a fraction and peeping, and then setting both fists on her hips and scowling at them. “Has Willow taken over Giles’ rôle as concussee, or was she telling the truth?”

Giles searched for the right words; Xander ploughed ahead with the wrong ones. “If you mean that Giles and Willow and I are having a thing, then yeah, we are.”

“What for?”

Angel-Wesley saluted her with his glass; it was a good question. Xander fluffed his lines a couple of times, but eventually managed, “Because we want to.”

She stared at him. “He’s _old_!”

“Experienced,” countered Xander.

“You and he are both...” she made a brief but unmistakeable gesture, “Willow?”

Xander's mouth thinned but he nodded. “And Willow and I are both...” and he made the same gesture, “Giles, and Giles and Willow are both... me.”

She looked wildly from Xander to Willow and then to Giles. “I didn’t even know that you’re gay!”

He winced. “I’m bisexual, Buffy. I’ve never hidden it. I didn’t make a big deal of it, because you seemed to struggle enough with my heterosexual relationships.”

She turned on Xander. “I didn’t even know that _you’re_ gay!”

“Didn’t know myself until half a year ago. Probably wasn’t, before that. And I still like girls.”

She looked at Willow, who shook her head. “Not gay. At least not as far as I know. But like watching gay guys.”

“Ewwwwwwwww!”

Willow shook her head again. “No, Buffy, you’ve totally gotta try it, it’s way hot!”

She ignored that and turned back on Giles. “You’re _old_.” He winced and she saw that, but her face was sullen. “Well, you are.”

Suddenly he was exhausted again. “Yes. I am. It’s a thing that happens to you if you live long enough. What do you want me to do about it?”

“Behave like it!”

He looked away. “What may I do, then? I’m not to have sex with women my own age. I’m not to have sex with younger women. Am I allowed to have sex with men at all? Is it just sex or is it anything enjoyable? When I wanted to go to concerts with Jenny Calendar you said I was stuffy but I can’t see you liking it any better if I go with Willow or Xander. Am I supposed to stay here, in suspended animation, until you want me? Am I only to read demonologies, or may I read, I don’t know, biography? Philosophy? Venture into thrillers? Am I stuck with the Times crossword, or may I have acrostics as well?”

“Giles, don’t,” implored Willow quietly. “Buffy’s upset.”

He felt a stab of guilt, but Willow hadn't finished. “But Buffy, you’re being selfish. You don’t want Giles, but we can’t have him?”

There was a long and uncomfortable silence. He broke it. “Are, are you angry with me because of what I’ve done with them, or because, be-because, is it that I’m taking them away from you?”

“Not,” objected Xander. “Willow said she asked if Buffy wanted...”

Giles shook his head. “Asked afterwards, not at the time and anyway...” He stopped, looking at Buffy’s expression and considering what his own head – and heart, and body – told him. “Buffy... we’re missing something.”

She nodded, slowly. “Yeah. I know.”

“Did... Willow _did_ ask you.”

She nodded again. “Don’t wanna.”

“Because...”

She shrugged. “Not gay so... and me and Xander? _So_ not a good idea.”

“And me?”

She swallowed hard, and he gave her a small smile, excluding the others. He stepped towards her, and stopped, reconsidered, and pulled the chair from under the desk, swinging it round, straddling it and sitting. It put his face lower than hers. “Buffy... kiss me. Properly, like a lover.”

“Ewwww!”

He shook his head stubbornly. “I mean it.” He lifted his face and she took a cautious step forward. “Kiss me, Buffy.”

She came to him in a rush, hand on his shoulder, face approaching, and he shut his eyes; her lips touched his, and deliberately, fighting every instinct, he opened his mouth.

She squawked and leaped away, scrubbing the back of her hand across her lips; he caught his own hand lifted to do the same thing. He nodded at her. “That’s why.”

“That’s why what?” asked Xander doubtfully. He had an arm around Willow, but he didn’t look happy. Giles hesitated and arranged his thoughts.

“I’m, I’m old for an active Watcher,” he began thoughtfully. “Gwendoline Post would have been old for one, too, and John Merrick. I don’t think that’s been deliberate, Buffy – well, it certainly wasn’t with Miss Post – I think it’s just been the way it’s fallen for you. Generally an active Watcher would, would be Wesley’s age or so.” He looked round at all of them. “There are some records of, of Watchers and Slayers entering into, into personal relationships, but fewer than you would think. At least fewer than, than I would expect given a Slayer of, of say, seventeen and a Watcher in his mid twenties.”

Xander shrugged. “So? You get Slayers like Buffy and Watchers like Wesley, they’re not likely to be best buds, never mind any more than that.” 

He hesitated again. He wasn’t sure quite what he was thinking; he was uncomfortable thinking about it at all, which only went to convince him that there _was_ something to think about.

“Willow... think about Wesley. Not about Wesley, as such, but about how he looked, about... Is Wesley attractive?”

Demon-Spike was sniggering, he thought, and angel-Wesley looked suspicious.

She wrinkled her nose. “Yeah, I guess. He’s nice-looking, in a buttoned up sort of way.”

Angel-Wesley looked down modestly; demon-Spike jogged his elbow and spilled his drink.

“As long as he doesn’t speak, or do anything,” she added; demon-Spike laughed.

“So... if Wesley hadn't behaved like a complete pillock, if he had been sympathetic, would you have been surprised if Buffy had taken up with him?”

“Ewwwww,” objected Buffy again, but Willow shook her head.

“Did you _ever_ think about him that way, Buffy?” 

Buffy’s turn to shake her head.

“Why not? Did you reject the idea because he’s a pillock? Or not your type? Or what?”

“Because he’s... I don’t know. I didn’t do much with him. Faith did more.”

“And Faith would proposition anyone” he heard himself about to say ‘with a pulse’ and managed to derail himself before the question of Angel raised itself again; “anyone she thought she would like to sleep with,” (Xander winced) “or anyone she thought would be embarrassed by the attention.” He looked round at them all. “She flirted with me – once. One remark. Never again. Did she flirt with Wesley?”

Xander frowned. “I don’t think so. Maybe she didn’t think... no, because it would have embarrassed him.”

He nodded. “I think she couldn’t. Because he was an active Watcher. And you couldn’t, Buffy, for the same reason. And if I say now that I want to...” he swallowed hard, unable even to put it into words.

“You can’t,” discovered Willow, “because Buffy’s a Slayer and Watchers and Slayers don’t do that!”      

“Watchers and Slayers don’t do that,” he agreed. “Or if they do, it’s rarely. There would have to be a very strong attraction to overpower whatever... whatever the alternative is.”

“Don’t see where that leaves us,” objected Xander, stubbornly. “I mean, I do, sorta: Buffy doesn’t want to be involved and maybe, yeah, maybe that’s because Watchers and Slayers don’t. And yeah, I’m sorry if it makes you feel left out, Buff, but I don’t see... if you don’t want to, I don’t see why it matters _why_ you don’t want to. I _do_ want to, and so does Willow, and so does Giles. And, ya know, I sorta think that’s our decision, not yours.”

There was a long moment’s silence and then Giles said heavily the thing which had been in his mind since Buffy had crossed the threshold.

“I’m afraid it’s not.”

Both Willow and Xander swung round to stare at him; the combined stares of all three of them were such that he deliberately turned away and fiddled with the things on his desk, arranging and rearranging paperclips and treasury tags. For all that he had been saying, firstly to himself and then to Xander and Willow, that the whole situation could not be permitted to continue, it was only now that he absolutely _knew_ this gift was going to be taken away from him, that he could allow himself to admit how much he wanted it.

“Buffy is my Slayer; I am her Watcher. I ca... I cannot,” and he gagged on the word, “I cannot act in such a way as to, to cause her distress of this kind. A year ago I could have, I think. Two years ago I certainly could. If it were a, a, if I weren’t serious about it, I could still. This, I can’t.”

“You need her agreement?” That was Willow, and she sounded... she sounded as desperate as Giles felt himself. If it hadn't hurt so much, he could have taken pleasure in the knowledge that it was true, it was all true, Willow really did feel... did want... “If it’s more than a one night stand, you need her _approval_?”

“Not gonna happen.” Buffy’s voice was flat.

“No,” he agreed. “I, I’m sorry, Xander. Willow. I wish... If things were... I should have said earlier, but I, I simply didn’t know. I didn’t know.” He wished... what did he wish? That he had known early enough to have been able to say ‘I’m sorry, that’s just not possible’ before any of it had happened? The trouble with great highs, he thought bitterly, was the way they came with correspondingly great lows. Would he have given up the physical pleasure – and the delight of realising that they genuinely wanted him – to avoid this pain?

“That’s _it_?” Xander's voice was scandalised. “What you want, what we want... Buffy gets to say...” He trailed off.

“I’m sorry, Xander. You said that Buffy didn’t get a vote but I’m afraid that she does and it’s the casting vote.” His voice shook and he stopped, and swallowed, struggling for control before adding, “I, I think I would like you to go now, please. All of you.” He didn’t dare turn to face them.

The door closed much more quietly than was usual for them; Giles sat down at his desk and looked blankly at the twist of metal which had been half a dozen perfectly serviceable paperclips. At the back of his mind he could see demon-Spike, shoulders hunched, cigarette hanging, hands in pockets, sulking. Angel-Wesley was trying not to look smug. Giles sat perfectly still. As long as he didn’t move, he needn’t think, and the pain was... manageable. If he moved, if he tried to read a book or write a note or stand up or go and make tea or climb the stairs, he would break, shatter, implode.

The door opened and closed again. He couldn’t look round. Xander would argue or Willow would beg, and he had no more words with which to tell them that neither he nor they could have what they wanted. If they didn’t understand now, they wouldn’t ever understand.

“Xander says that a Watcher might be defeated by... by all sorts of things, but it’s wrong for him to be defeated by his Slayer.”

He had no answer to that.

“Willow says that every time she suggests doing something by magic, you tell her that just because she _can_ do something doesn’t mean she _should_.”

Nor to that.

“Giles...” Her voice broke, and he had to turn, because she was his Slayer, and she was... he hadn't quite realised, but she was as unhappy as he was himself.

“Buffy... I won’t die of it. Nor will they.” He wondered if, just at the moment, they felt as if they would.

“I thought they would yell at me,” she said, irrelevantly. “They just... they’re disappointed.”

So was he.

“They’re disappointed in me again.” She sounded like a little girl, so hurt, hurt at least as much as the rest of them.

“They don’t understand about the Watcher and the Slayer. I didn’t understand it myself until just now.”

Her face crumpled, and he couldn’t help himself: he held out his arms and she flung herself against his chest. “Ah, now, Buffy, don’t cry. It can’t be helped. It’s how Slayers and Watchers are.”

“I never knew. I never... I knew Willow had a crush on you, but I didn’t... I didn’t see it. Didn’t see how she could. Didn’t see what Cordelia saw in Wesley, either.”

He stroked her hair, and laid his cheek on it. “It doesn’t matter.”

“I just... I never thought of you that way. Not _that_ way.”

“I know.”

“And when it was Miss Calendar... or anybody else, and when it was my _mom_... I mean, I already knew that I didn’t want to think about my mom doing... having... and it was the same with you, and both of you together...”

He laughed, painfully. “That’s not Watcher-Slayer stuff, Buffy, that’s just normal. Everybody knows that members of their families, and people from previous generations, don’t do _that_. I am quite well aware that my own parents had sex precisely once, face to face, Saturday night, lights out, didn’t enjoy it, never did it again.”

Her own laugh was no more convincing than his. “You sure they did it once?”

“I’m here, aren’t I?”

She huffed into his chest. “Yeah, I guess.” Her arms tightened on him. “Giles...”

He waited, but she seemed to have run out of words. His own came haltingly. “I do love you, Buffy. I probably don’t mention it often enough.”

“Too stuffy and British,” she countered, trying to tease; he took the wish for the deed, and frowned at her.

“Watch yourself, missy; I can still ground you until you’re thirty-five and cut off your allowance.”

“Giles, you don’t give me an allowance!”

“Don’t I? I’ll remember that next time you tell me you’re tired of fighting with a claymore and you want a falcata instead. Any more of your lip and you can pay for your own swords.”

“You’re so mean,” she whined at him; “all the other girls have morningstars!”

He gave her the lifted eyebrow and she pouted. “Yeah, I know, I know. In your day you made your own spears and were glad of them.” She sighed again and pulled a little away from him, scrubbing one hand across her eyes like a tired child. “O.K. Grow up some, Buffy. It’s not always about me, is it?” She took a deep breath and let it out in a rush. “I dunno if this works but... O.K. You and Xander and Willow. Took me by surprise, is all. Not really my business, and I suppose I can’t say you’re too old for them because you’re nowhere near as old as Angel and they’re older than I was when... then. Uh, I should probably make Willow’s speech about shovels, but you already know how it goes, yeah? And anyway, when it’s the three of you, I don’t know which of you to make it to. Try not to hurt each other. And never, _never_ , tell me, O.K.?”  

He was silenced, amazed, uncomprehending: she saw that. “Look, I don’t like it, Giles, but... I guess I like a miserable Watcher even less. Xander's right: broken Watcher means bad Slayer. And Willow’s right too: just because I _could_ stop you doesn’t mean I should. Is that... is that enough? Just for me to say, O.K., go and do...” she shuddered.

He felt around the corners of his mind. “I... I think so. Buffy...” No more words came to him. She gave him a twisted smile.

“That should keep Kendra quiet for a while.”

“I, I beg your pardon?”

She wrinkled her nose. “When I know I’m not doing the right thing? It’s like Faith in one ear saying ‘go on, do it: want, take, have’ and Kendra in the other one saying ‘you know better’. Sometimes she says ‘Mr Giles taught you better than that’. Sounds stupid, yeah?”

He shook his head. “Spike says Ripper can do what he likes. Wesley says Rupert can’t.”

She winced. “Kendra nags but I’d rather have her than Wesley. O.K., I’m outta here. Are... are we training later?”

He wasn’t certain whether that was a concession from her to him – normally she could think of reasons to skip training faster than he could counter them – or from him to her – proof that no matter what was going on between him and Xander and Willow, he was always there _first_ for her – but it didn’t matter. “About six? Hand to hand?”

“Can I have a new morningstar?”

“ _More_ new things?” He looked disapproving, just to make her smile. “We’ll see.”

She came back to hug him again, and he kissed her forehead.

“ _Promise_ you’ll never tell me anything about it?”

He had a sudden panic. “There may be nothing to tell. I, I don’t know what Willow or Xander will think of me needing to have... they may not want... it was all so sudden and...”

“Whoa, Giles, heading into telling territory here. And if you mean that they may go off in a huff because I... well, because I went off in a huff...”

He shook his head. “I, I mean that they may change their minds now that they know that I, that I’m not a free agent. That I require your, your consent. That would be, I can see that it would be a difficult thing to, to...”

“And that would be why they’re sitting in the courtyard now,” she said briskly, opening the door. “Guys? The only rule is that I never have to hear about it. Oh, and that I get my Watcher fit to patrol. And that I don’t have to see anything wiggy, so all clothes on when you’re anywhere I might be, no public displays of affection, no _details_.”

It was Xander who went to hug her first, but Willow followed. She looked back at Giles and grinned impishly. “Kendra’s pleased. What does Wesley think?”

He grinned back. “I’m not going to tell him.”   


	7. Hysteresis

He didn’t quite know what to do next. He stood and watched Buffy taking her leave, and then he looked at the other two, who stood and looked back. Xander – of course – broke first.

“So... can we come in again?”

“If you have to ask, then no,” he said, rather unsteadily, but Xander just laughed and bounded to the door, with Willow following, head tipped earnestly.

“Giles, we didn’t bully her. We weren’t mean. I... when she came back in, we didn’t, well I didn’t think she was gonna change her mind. I just thought she ought not to leave you when you were so... and she was all...” She shrugged. “I wanted you to make up. Well, I _wanted_ her to change her mind, but the Slayer thing? I mean, hello, more important than any of the rest...”

He nodded. Xander cocked his head like a puppy. “True, Giles. We really didn’t get on her case about it. Well, not much. We did tell her what we thought, but...”

The couch somehow caught Giles behind the knees; he dropped into it, and Willow knelt on the cushion beside him.

“You told her that a good Slayer didn’t break her Watcher.” He looked up at Xander, who had the grace to blush.

“Well, yeah.” He thumped down on Giles’ other side, and Giles threw an arm around him and dragged him against his chest, before turning back to Willow.

“And you actually remembered what I’d said about working magic.”

She squirmed close enough to cuddle. “Yeah.”

They simply sat; Giles wasn’t certain what the other two were thinking. He didn’t know what _he_ was thinking, except that he was happy: he could _feel_ happiness inside him as a physical thing.

(Happiness, hinted demon-Spike, should be shared around.

Angel-Wesley pointed out sulkily that that was _his_ line and any happiness-sharing being advocated by Spike was almost certainly immoral and unsuitable and Giles shouldn’t do it.

Giles told angel-Wesley to mind his own business and asked demon-Spike how he thought happiness-sharing could be done.

Angel-Wesley made his own turkey-noise at demon-Spike’s suggestion.)

“So... Willow? How many times did I tell you that just because you _could_ do something using magic, it didn’t mean that you should?” It was his best Librarian voice, and made her look up sharply. He kept one hand moving slowly through her hair, hoping that she might reconcile the Cross Giles tone with the affectionate touch and make the intuitive leap without him having to explain anything.

“About once a month?” She wasn’t quite there: she knew that what he was saying wasn’t what he was _saying_ , but she wasn’t certain why. Xander shifted to be able to look at both of them; Giles thought he was going to speak, but he didn’t.

“And how often did you listen to me and do as you were told?”  _Very_ Stern Librarian, and Willow looked past him at Xander, who had got it and was smiling.

“Um, I dunno?”

“About never, I guess,” put in Xander – yes, he had definitely got it. Surprising that he was so much quicker than either Buffy _or_ Willow when it came to emotional connections. “Giles, I think Willow was naughty.”

Her eyes went wide; he saw the leap to comprehension. “You’re a tattletale, Xander.”

“I was going to say ‘telltale’,” agreed Giles, “but that’s something for me to deal with later. Just at the moment, madam, I’m speaking to you.”

She shivered and dipped her head. “Yes, sir.” Yes, she’d got it.

“And what happens when you’re disobedient, Willow?” That gave her enough of an out to make a joke of it and turn it away if she wanted, but she gave him big round eyes and a solemn face.

“I get a spanking?” It sounded _much_ too hopeful, and Xander gave a snort of laughter, but Giles managed – with an effort – to keep his expression stern.

“You do indeed and I think you deserve one now, don’t you? Up you get and you can just go across my knee.”

She put her elbow in his stomach bouncing enthusiastically into place; he patted the seat of her jeans lightly, and then a little more firmly, increasing the force behind each blow as she made no objection and working steadily round the target. When she squirmed, he smiled across her at Xander.

“I think we need these jeans off, Willow. You’re not feeling this half enough.” He held her lightly in place with one hand and worked the other underneath her, flicking her waistband open. She lifted obediently to let him unfasten the zip and work the jeans off her hips; today her underwear was green, and it occurred to him that if she and Xander intended to spend their time with him – and he hoped they did, he hoped that this was more than just sex – he would need to make some space for them. It would be more than toothbrushes in the bathroom and a couple of flight bags each containing a single change of clothes for blood and slime emergencies and occasional overnights on the couch.

“Giles?” prompted Xander. He jumped and looked up.

“Gone off in your head? What were you thinking about?”

“Laundry,” he said frankly, “and storage.” Willow twisted and shot him an outraged look over her shoulder, so he spanked her a little harder, and added, “and Willow in coloured knickers.” He smacked her twice more and said consideringly, “Or possibly taking the knickers away – like this – and painting Willow pink entirely – by – hand,” with three hard spanks by way of punctuation, “to teach her not to be cheeky.”

She wriggled and he laughed. “What do you want, Willow? Just to be warmed up a bit, or to be turned over my knee whether you like it or not?” The last phrase came in a growl, obviously only half serious, but holding out to her the possibility of rôle-play.

“Yeah,” said Xander, obviously inadvertently. “Yeah, what you said.”

He cocked his head. “You think I should punish her?” He landed two more smacks, more sound than fury.

“Not her; me!”

“You, you think I should punish you?”

Xander grinned. “Look me in the eye, Giles, and tell me you’ve never wanted to.”

He gave half a minute to reddening Willow evenly. “Approximately once a week, back when you were at school. Maybe once every ten days since.”

“Yo. Make a list and work it off.”

“God, you two are going to kill me.” He let his fingers slip between Willow’s thighs, and tickled her lightly. She squirmed off his lap, landing on the floor with her jeans binding her thighs, and looked up at Xander.

“It’s not fair.”

They both looked at her in some surprise.

“What’s not fair?” enquired Giles cautiously.

She frowned at him. “Last night I came twice. And Xander came twice. And you only came once and that’s not fair.”

He dropped his forehead into one palm. “Believe me, I am _not_ keeping score. I, I know you don’t like it when I say so, sweetheart, but _I am twice your age_. The big advantage to having both of you here, from my point of view, is that you will amuse each other while I’m lying panting on the bed waiting for my heart rate to drop.”

“It’s still not fair,” she objected, coming up onto her knees, dragging her jeans back up without fastening them, and elbowing her way between his thighs. “We didn’t even try.”

He snorted. “Willow, last night, you could have tried all you liked, you wouldn’t have got a response out of me. I was done.”

“No, _I_ was done,” murmured Xander helpfully. “You did me.”

Giles raised an eyebrow. “Add ‘impudence’ to your list,” he suggested. “I’ve wanted to spank you for that more than once.” His voice cracked as Willow determinedly unfastened his trousers and wormed her way inside. “Strewth, woman, your hands are cold! Warn a man before you do that! You stick cold hands in there, you won’t find anything interesting, I’m telling you.”

“This is interesting,” she pointed out.

“What ya got, Will?” Xander leaned over Giles’ thigh to look.

“You, you needn’t pretend to be so surprised, you saw it yesterday. So did Willow. And you’ve got one of your own, anyway, I don’t see why you’re so fascinated by mine.”

“I’m just wondering what Willow’s planning on doing with it.”

So was Giles; Willow looked thoughtful. “I want Giles to do what he did yesterday again, and he said something about doing to me what he liked girls to do to him, so...” She looked a little worried, and Giles leaned forward and cupped her chin.

“Dear girl, I was speaking generally. I, I don’t want you to do anything you don’t like.”

“Never done it,” she pointed out. “So I don’t know if I like it or not. But yeah, it seems fair that if I want you to, you might want me to.” She tipped her head on one side. “Um, let me try?”

He swallowed hard, and nodded, since the possibility of speech temporarily escaped him. Angel-Wesley and demon-Spike appeared to be arguing over something: he wanted to warn them not to interfere. Willow frowned in concentration over his clothing, and he obligingly lifted his hips to work free of the tweed.

“’Kay. Um, is there a right way to do this?”

Xander made a strangled noise and Willow turned on him, eyes flashing; Giles was quick to intervene.

“He, he’s not laughing at you. It’s just the concept of a _wrong_ way to do it... Careful with the teeth, I’m delicate. Other than that, do whatever comes to mind.” She still looked doubtful, so he added gently, “Try a lick? You, you don’t have to get adventurous straight off. Oh. Yes, like that. That’s good. Just lick whatever... oh God yes.” He shut his eyes. “ _Careful_ with the teeth but you could nibble a little if you... oh yes, that’s good. And perhaps suck? If you wanted?” He would have liked to give more precise instructions, but all he could think was that she had never done this before, not with _anybody_ , that she had never tasted a man before him. He slipped one hand into her hair, stroking gently – he would _not_ allow his fingers to go around her neck, he wasn’t going to make her feel trapped or forced – and the other hand quested for Xander, who seemed to have taken over the rôle of coach, and who was whispering suggestions in Willow’s ear.

Technically, he thought, he’d had better blowjobs. At least, he’d had more accomplished ones. But in terms of looking down and seeing Willow’s head – and Xander's beside it – _that_ was something else. His own head thumped back against the couch. Oh, was it ever something else.

She drew back apologetically, and worked her jaw. “That’s just... I’m not used to... Give me a moment?” and now he did pull, pulled hard enough to bring her up against him to be kissed.

“I don’t want you to hurt yourself, Willow. It’s, it’s wonderful but it’s only wonderful as long as you’re enjoying it too. As, as soon as it’s a chore, or a bore, you need to stop.”

“And move over,” said Xander cheerfully. “Team Scooby is here. The Harris-Rosenberg patented tag-team blowjob manoeuvre. See how Number One, Rosenberg, starts the play! See how Number Two, Harris, takes over to allow recovery!” He looked up and his grin faltered for a moment. “Um, gotta tell you, I’ve never done this either. Had it done to me, which probably helps, but you gotta say if I’m too... I dunno, too rough or whatever.”

And that was different. Xander might never have done it before, but he knew where to look for buttons to push. He knew about running his fingertips up Giles’ thighs and under his balls. He knew about scraping with his nails, very gently. He _knew_ where the sensitive places were likely to be and he tried out as many as he could find. He actually was rougher than Willow had been, in general, but gentler on the really sensitive places, presumably on account of knowing where the really sensitive places were and how sensitive they could be. He stopped and drew breath and Willow came in for a second try.

Giles handed her off carefully. “Much more of that and I’ll be done,” he warned her. Xander looked startled.

“Is that a problem?”

“For, for me? No,” said Giles frankly, “but is it what you want? Given that afterwards...”

Willow was wearing the big eyes and round mouth again. “No, because you said yesterday that Xander could, could...”

He pulled her up into his lap. “Could fuck me while I fucked you. Like that idea, Willow?”

She nodded. He looked over at Xander. “Do you?”

Xander shivered. “These are not Giles-words. These are not words I expect to hear out of the G-Man’s mouth. ’M having trouble processing them, guys. Yeah. Yeah, I want that, but please can you not say it again because there is extreme danger that I will just come in my pants if Giles goes on talking dirty.”

Giles grinned. “What about you, Willow? Do you talk dirty?”

She shook her head, biting her lip and blushing.

“Not even to get Xander going?”

She looked at Xander and a wicked smile crossed her face. He shivered again. “Aw, guys, are you ganging up on me?”

Giles leaned back and began to rearrange his clothing. “Yes. I, I think I’m going to start a vocabulary test with Willow. I’ll kiss anything she asks me to kiss – hers or yours – but she has to ask me, out loud, and she doesn’t get to use the same term twice in any session.” Willow’s eyes were wide and Xander looked stunned; demon-Spike was doubled up laughing and angel-Wesley was bug-eyed with horror. Giles zipped his trousers, and leaned over to grab Willow, working himself out of the couch and upright, with Willow in his arms, legs wrapped around his waist, close enough to kiss. “So anything you want kissed, Xander, you have to teach the word to Willow and Willow has to ask me. And, and meanwhile, you’re going to fuck me, and nobody’s done that in a long time, so you’re going to teach Willow how lube works and where it goes and how to get it there.

“Shall we go upstairs?”

Xander was ahead of him, hurrying; Willow’s arms were around his neck and her head on his shoulder.

Demon-Spike appeared to be helping angel-Wesley to pack.

**Author's Note:**

> If you're interested, [misse](http://misse.livejournal.com/) wrote a little piece about the minor characters, and it can be found [here](http://misse.livejournal.com/58021.html#cutid1).


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